If I Die Again, Wait Up For Me
by MomotsukiNezumi
Summary: It's late, the world has come apart and been pushed back together once more, and there was a dead man on his bathroom floor being cleaned up with yesterday's towels and a head full of memories of what was lost. Steve is just grateful that this time, when his best friend was thought dead, it wasn't to a nightmare of Hydra that he awoke to, even if that means patching him up himself.


**DISCLAIMER: I own nothing of Marvel's ****_Captain America/Captain America: The Winter Soldier. _****This is for entertainment purposes only, given that I wanted to channel my recent browsing of Bucky!whump fanart into something less...feeling-inducing. He needs a hug, and so does Steve.**

**On a less depressing note, Happy 4th of July for those of us Midgardians in the United States! Please enjoy eating watermelon, pie, and barbeque while blowing up things in honor of both America (bless his crazy hero self) and the good Capsicle here! **

* * *

There were a lot of scars, he noticed.

Big ones, small ones, some the size of his fingernail or the length of one pinky finger, others stretching out to encompass arm-length and rippling with jagged edges. The point where metal arm met organic shoulder was riddled with these, bone-white scratches that had long since scarred over into slices like claw marks from some demonic cat.

The thick black body armor gave way after a few determined tugs and yanks (he had never been quite so grateful in these past hours for the enhanced strength afforded by the super serum), to reveal a patchwork torso of deep bruising in mottled shades of indigo, violets, and greyish-blacks, the look scarily like that done by repeated electrical exposure, and he forced himself not to think of what that might mean.

He couldn't look at that, not yet, not when he was still needed.

Other little horrors make themselves noticeable: there are several long, but thankfully shallow lacerations littering a rather scarred back through which a spine, every knobbly bit of vertebrae a bump under skin, can be felt if he presses down, even just a little. The thought is terribly disheartening.

_When did you last eat something?_

He suspects the man will not remember. The mission had been too important to waste time thinking or acting on an asset's potential need to address such trivial, second-hand things as long-term hunger, or thirst, or even proper sleep, if the dark, thick rings around bruised eyes can testify.

Tomorrow, he decides, will be a day for such things. Chicken soap with extra peas and carrots and a tall glass of water should be a good start, and maybe some multivitamins and a few painkillers, if he can find any left in the cupboards. And chocolate, there must be chocolate, God knows how many years it must have been since he had had this man to share food with that wasn't the watered-down excuse for sustenance found in the tired, threadbare soup kitchens of his youth, or the rations from time in training that were so hard teeth were broken by chewing futilely on the thick bars of unrefined chocolate or old oats and vegetable bits.

The towels around him are soaked to the core by now, the soggy fabric clogged with the remnants of all too-recent gore and grime from battle, rendering the material an ugly shade of blackish-brown from dirt and blood and oil. He hoped that when he went to go wash out the filth from them in the laundry room down below, the machine doesn't break down from the load.

A low groan snaps him out of his musings after a while, and he watches in worry as a harsh shudder wracks the body lying before him, blood seeping through in dots and slashes across the thick binding of bandages wrapped around battered sides. The air in the room is humid, steam lifting up out of the water from where he'd run water in the sink to soak the towels and wrappings for cleansing, wiping away the accumulated physical history of the last botched up job.

With hope, perseverance, and a good deal of luck and faith, perhaps that will indeed be the last job done in the killing business.

But for now, he had to be patient for the two of them. He had to keep him safe, keep him hidden. If S.H.I.E.L.D. found out...

_No, no, don't think of that. He'll be fine, he **will.**_

_He doesn't remember you._

_He could have killed me, but instead he got me to shore, he made sure I didn't drown. He came **here**, even when he knew he could get killed if someone found out. _

It's not much to have faith in, but it's enough. He'd lived on worse than that. Growing up a scrawny little runt with a target on his back saying "Bully me" had taught him to have faith in this man, to remember that he always came when things got rough, and it was time to return the favor.

The man had shown up looking like Death had warmed over, barely managing to stagger through the door past its shell-shocked resident and collapse onto the floor of the bathroom, leaking blood onto the tile and each breath inhaled sounding like the air's being scraped out of the damaged lungs.

He wasn't quite sure what had driven him back here, but he'd seen enough not to question, and instead to act. Time in the field would do that to a person, he supposed.

A few quick swipes with the comb through stringy dark hair tears out a few strands, as well as a good chunk of lake mud and bits of metal and glass. The sodden mess is thrown into a garbage bag along with the shredded remnants of the ripped combat outfit and mask, cut up further with a pair of sewing scissors borrowed from the old lady downstairs and doused with bleach to be buried at the bottom of the dumpster tomorrow. The garbage truck always took it away to the local junkyard for demolition, and no one will be the wiser.

Or, at least, he hopes so. That will have to be sufficient.

The fuzzy mat on the bathroom floor is damp and undoubtedly uncomfortable now, but since the person lying on it doesn't seem to be in any position to complain, he continues with his duties, swabbing away blood and dust and applying disinfectant to everything that looks like a cut or a bruise or a scrape. Memories flare up and vanish every so often of the situation, long ago, then reversed, with himself on the floor, getting chips of ice wrapped in a handkerchief as a compress, a pencil held in his mouth to chomp down on as splinters or bits of gravel were pulled out one by one using fingernails and whatever tweezers can be swiped or spared from the local barber's shop, and all the while the older boy's voice had kept up a steady stream of chatter, reassuring as the sun coming up each morning.

He didn't get him back from the dead just to lose him to a few unclean cuts and bruises. He's alive, and he would _stay _alive, that's a promise.

_Until the end of the line, and I meant it. I **still** mean it. _

The air in the bathroom was cooler now, the humidity fading enough to leave mist fogging the medicine cabinet glass and a gossamer-fine sheen of cold perspiration across a pale forehead. He brushed away a lock of chocolate hair away, tucking it behind one ear so as not to get stuck from the sweat, and watched, almost hungrily, as that lean chest rises and falls like the movement of the waves.

It's a silly fear, but not entirely irrational. If he hadn't been privy to the knowledge otherwise, he would have thought for a moment that this was all just a fever dream. How else was he to explain this strange phenomenon?

There was a dead man on his bathroom floor, metal arm wrapped up in the only remaining dry towel (and a blanket for good measure) to prevent the wet from seeping in and letting rust occur, face clean shaven for the first time in what he suspects is quite a long time (and if he dropped the shaving razor a few times before his hand stopped shaking, who was to know? The man was _asleep_) and breathing slow and steady.

The last of the bandages are applied, along with the remaining dregs of anti-bacterial ointment (pressing down on it to squeeze out the last of it proved to be a rather bad idea, but he hoped that the new hole in the wall left by the ricochet of the tube cap into plaster and concrete can be ignored if he puts in some of his art on a wall canvas), and then comes the hard part.

Taking in a deep breath, he reached down and, carefully as he would for the rescue of the cat of the lady downstairs, he slid his arms underneath the prone form and pulled upwards, cradling the lanky body as he began the trek to the living room.

The couch isn't much, but it seems a veritable Taj Mahal once blankets and one of his pillows are added. Sure, tucking in the blanket over him into neat little hospital corners was a bit much, but it helped keep in warmth, and if he woke and flew into a rage at the feeling of confinement, that's okay.

He's here now, everything else can be figured out later.

Taking a moment to hunker down on the floor beside the couch with a blanket and pillow of his own, he watched as shadows skimmed and skated across the pale visage, the alternating light and dark patterns filtering in from the pulled-down window shades casting the bruises in deeper definition. Without the added protective vest, the rise and fall of that thin torso can be seen with an almost frightening ease, and the soft, almost silent noise of breath making its way in and out of battered lungs is a dismal comfort in the dark.

"Goodnight, Bucky."

He hoped that when he awoke, it wouldn't also be _Good-bye._

Sleep doesn't come easy, it slinks in with a tail between stick-skinny legs like a misbehaved dog, and when he finally manages to close his eyes, he pleads inwardly that when he next opened them, there won't be a distinct lack of tall, injured assassin missing from his apartment.

But when the arms of Morpheus start to embrace him, the fear melts away. Those shadow-haunted eyes are looking at him, filled with memories of God knows what but mercifully, beautifully _clear_, and a ghostly rendition of the smile he had thought he had left behind in the second World War. The voice is lower than he remembered, raspy from disuse, but it's still there, still his best friend.

"G'night, Steve."


End file.
